OpenCoin Raises Funding From Bitcoin Opportunity Fund And Others

OpenCoin has closed an angel round of funding with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund ; an investment vehicle for Bitcoins and Bitcoin-related companies. The involvement of Bitcoin might sound a little odd, given its recent spike and trememendous nosedive in the markets yesterday, but OpenCoin plans to use the investment to fund the Ripple protocol, its own virtual currency and payments system. Ripple is an interesting concept. It’s an open source payments system, developed by OpenCoin, that also doubles as a native math-based virtual currency called ‘ripples’. Merchants, consumers and developers can use it to make free, instant payments across the globe, using any currency in existence. That includes dollars, yen, euros and – surprise, surprise – even Bitcoin. Ripple is currentl...